My friend, Avery Cove sent us a photo of her Christmas tree! We've been friends online for a few years, but I just met her in person at the ACFW conference last September. She's a lovely person, and a writer I predict you will see in print very soon. Here's a link to her new website: http://www.averycove.com
Christmas
Magic
For me, Christmas holidays bring out family traditions that start
with the Christmas tree. When the lights dim and the tree lights glow, our eyes
reflect the magic and the wonder in every twinkle. We are enthralled.
When my husband and I had our first Christmas, we had very little money. But both of us had a
childhood ornament given to us by our parents, so together with a cedar tree we’d
cut down from the woods, we added strands of popcorn and homemade decorations.
Because we could not see our financial situation changing much, we decided we
would add one ornament each year to our Christmas collection. I believed we should
save money for a more expensive one since this was to be a keepsake, but we
finally decided we should buy one that gave an idea of how well we had fared financially through the
year and date it. Our tree chronicles our years of plenty and years of poverty.
For thirty-seven years, we’ve added ornaments
our children made at home and school, and there are ornaments that hang from
the tree given to us by friends and family. Now we have so many, all of them
can no longer go on the tree but we still enjoy talking about them, going
through them, and remembering our Christmas past.
This year while we were gone to celebrate Christmas
with my WIN-ACFW writing group in Tulsa, Oklahoma, our son and his girlfriend
decorated the tree—What a wonderful surprise!
Love this one, including the cat!
ReplyDeleteWhat a neat surprise, Shelia! It's a beautiful tree.
ReplyDeleteI love your tradition! The best ornaments are the ones with memories :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting, ladies!
ReplyDeleteAvery Cove is my mother. I remember our trees with popcorn and home made/hand painted ornaments, as I am the oldest child. Looking back now, I realize that instead of being upset and down about financial stresses during the early days, she made everything interesting and fun. She would make games out of stringing the popcorn, and painting the wooden soldiers. I had the best Christmases a child could ever had. I never knew we didn't have money for ornaments, I just thought we made them because it was fun! Christmas is still my favorite time of the entire year, because of those memories of home made Christmases
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful testimony about your mom! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the lovely comments, and thanks Cheryl for giving me the opportunity to share a bit of my Christmas memories.
ReplyDeleteThe tree is absolutely beautiful, and Avery's daughter made me wish for one who could say such loving things about me. I had stinky boys instead. :)
ReplyDelete